INVEST in GREECE agency

Περιοδική έκδοση

Invest in Greece Ranked Among Strongest Performers by World Bank Report

One of the most essential components in attracting new investment to a country is the response of its investment promotion agency to enquiries from the international investment community.

The professionals at Invest in Greece Agency have been recognised as among the top three globally in their investor response performance.

A report issued by the World Bank Group has ranked Invest in Greece Agency among the best performers of Investment Promotion Intermediaries in handling investor inquiries.

The study, “Global Investment Promotion Benchmarking 2012,” found that Invest in Greece Agency improved greatly between 2009 and 2012, and was ranked third globally in responding to investor inquiries.

“Invest in Greece Agency improved greatly from 2009. Invest in Greece Agency went from being among the OECD’s weakest performers in 2009 to being among the world’s strongest in 2012. Most impressively, at a time of economic turmoil, when many IPIs would be discouraged, Invest in Greece Agency tried harder.”

The results reflect the importance that Greece has given to FDI during the last four years and the country’s effort to globally highlight the vast investment potential in a variety of areas, including tourism, energy, food and beverage, environmental management, life sciences, and ICT. Invest in Greece was singled out for making ‘world-class” inquiry responses a “matter of course” while operating the agency according to the best practices of the private sector.

According to the report, “While good agencies will answer every investor question, great agencies go further. They distil that information and apply a cost-benefit analysis based on the client’s interests to create a strong business case, which is then presented concisely but with high promotional value added.

“Invest in Greece Agency manages to do this because, despite being a public agency, it is run according to private-sector principles. This includes applying cost-benefit analysis to investor-targeting and having ISO-certified processes.

“Invest in Greece Agency leapt from being an average facilitator in 2009 to one of the world’s best practice agencies in 2012, in no small part because of the comprehensive and effective inquiry-handling processes that recently earned it an ISO certification.

“Incoming inquiries are routed to sector specialists in the Investment Promotion Department, who must then respond within 48 hours. From that moment forward, fixed project management processes ensure that all necessary information is collected from other departments, such as Research and Analysis, and database subscriptions, such as FDI Markets.